The last Parrot product which I have reviewed was the Zik 2.0 Bluetooth Headphone. I really loved that high quality device. Recently I had the chance to review the Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD which is a Bluetooth car hands-free kit.

In this post, I am going to share my experience with the device considering its features, pros and cons, design and all other aspects in details.

Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD : Hands-on Review

Unboxing and Retail Box Content

Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD comes in a small retail box which you will find filled with the information regarding the device and its highlighted features. Inside the retail box there is a Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD device, a USB cable, car charger and a user manual.

You can watch our Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD unboxing video below.

Design

Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD is having a great design. A t a glance, you will realize that it is supposed to be placed on your vehicle’s sun visor. There is a big knob or jog wheel in the middle which points towards the driver. It works as the menu button and you can change the settings by tapping or rotating the knob.

There are green and red strip around the knob which lit up while using the knob to access the settings or whenever there is an incoming call. If you access the settings using the jog wheel, a voice prompt guides you properly for each steps and settings.

Right below the jog wheel there is a microphone which let you talk and give voice commands to the Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD. Rest of the surface is basically a flat speaker.

There is a power toggle switch given on the edge and there is a USB port given on the other side to charge the device. There is a LED indicator right next to the USP port to show the status of battery charging. The 1,000mAh battery is in-built. The whole body of the device is having the matter finish and looks pretty sturdy.

Connectivity

Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD is a Bluetooth device and can be connected to most of the Bluetooth devices. Pairing the device with a smartphone is pretty easy and takes the exact same process like connecting with any other Bluetooth device. Still I have faced the frequent connection-disconnection issue with few of the Android phones.

Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD supports the hands-free calling profile on Bluetooth 4.0, the A2DP audio streaming profile and the Phonebook access profile for syncing contacts to its memory for voice commands. One drawback here is that it can sync only the contacts which are saved in the phone memory. So to use the voice commands to make calls, you will have to move all phonebook contacts to phone’s memory first.

Once connected, you can make calls with voice commands or use the Parrot’s Magic Word by saying “Minikit” and then tell the name of the person whom you would like to call. You can connect up to devices with the Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD at the very same time using the Dual Mode. But at a time, you will be able to use only one device with the Magic Words.

It supports the HD Voice too boosting the audio quality if supported by your network. Though the speaker of the device is not big enough, the sound coming out of it is still loud and clear enough to have a nice telephonic conversation. But if you would like to stream the music over it, you will be a bit disappointed.

Smartphone App and Features

To use all the features of Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD easily, you can install the smartphone app which is available to Android and iOS devices. Once again there is no app available for the Windows Phone users, like the Parrot Zik 2.0 headphone.

The MINIKIT Neo 2 HD app let you check the battery level in percentage of your MINIKIT Neo 2 HD. It also let you access all the settings and features right from the phone instead of using the jog wheel manually. You can even change the MINIKIT Neo 2 HD notification tone or boot sound.

But the best features of MINIKIT Neo 2 HD smartphone app are related to the parking. You can set a parking reminder to avoid any parking tickets. When you go away from the car and your phone disconnects with the device then, MINIKIT Neo 2 HD saves the approximate GPS location of your car which helps in locating it again when you are back. It also let you set a driving reminder which tells you that since how long you are driving and when you should take a rest.

There is an interesting safety feature which let you avoid all of the incoming calls when you are driving and let you send a pre-defined SMS to the caller that you are unable to answer since you are driving.

Battery

The battery performance of Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD is impressive, thanks to the smart sensor. The battery of Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD is claimed to have the 10-hour talk time and six months standby. It goes in the sleep mode smartly when you are away from the device and turns back on by itself once you enter the car, thanks to the vibration detector it got. This also saves the battery of device a lot in daily use.

Conclusion

is a nice Bluetooth car hands-free kit and comes with lots of interesting and useful features. But at a price tag of US $100, you may find it cheaper online at around US $80, few people will find it a bit expensive. Specially if you are having the Bluetooth capable car stereo system, like the one I got in mine, you will not feel the need of having this device even though it provides many extra and useful features.

But if you are in need of Bluetooth car hands-free kit then, I would recommend it to get the Parrot MINIKIT Neo 2 HD as it is not just a Bluetooth car hands-free kit but also comes with many useful feature which you will not get in the regular devices.